Home Tutor
by Brai
Summary: Kyon is falling behind in school... again. Haruhi decides to take his schooling into her own hands. — light Kyon/Haruhi


I stared at my clock, not wanting to admit I was awake already; the hands said that it was already past ten o'clock. Maybe if I close my eyes I'll be able to fall back to sleep before my sister inevitably wakes me. I turned away from the clock and pressed my face into my pillow in an attempt to block out the sun. Damn, it didn't help. I could here my little sister prancing haphazardly around the house, ignoring the fact that I was supposedly asleep. Thanks, Sis.

It took me by surprise when I heard the sound of the doorbell resonating throughout the house. Who could it possibly be at this time in the day? Both Mom and Dad were already at work, so it was just me and my sister.

"Coming!" shouted my sister.

A moment later, I heard the door open and my sister's voice. I couldn't quite distinguish who she was speaking to, but the voice was definitely a female and it sounded sort of familiar. I should probably get up and make sure that it wasn't someone trying to abduct my innocent sister, butdamn did my bed feel good. I heard the door close and I felt my eyelids droop. My door let out a squeak as it was opening. Perhaps my sister wanted to play with Shamisen, so if I feign this just right...

"GET UP, KYON!" yelled a sharp voice. My body was being rocked by the fierce shoving of someone who definitely was not my sister, causing me to jolt upwards.

God, it's too early!

"If you sleep in too late, Kyon, you won't have any bit of your day left!" said the sharp voice. My blurry eyes focused on the girl shaking me. Standing in front of me was Haruhi Suzumiya.

"What do you want!" I snapped. Perhaps I was a bit too harsh, but she deserved it after the rough awakening I had to go through. I believe there's a law that prevents people from barging into your house and waking you up.

"Honestly, Kyon, as if you have to ask," she said smartly. "Your grades in school are abysmal. While I do have plenty of things I'd rather be doing, as Brigade Leader of the SOS Brigade, I feel it's my responsibility to watch out for you. If you'd attend summer school, that would conflict with club activities! I simply cannot allow that!"

How long is she going to keep talking? Knowing Haruhi, I won't be able to make it to tomorrow without getting my homework done. It's Saturday morning, so I have plenty of time to do it tomorrow. Can't a guy just get some well-earned sleep after being shoved around by you all week!

"You get enough sleep all week during class, Kyon! I don't know what else you could possibly be doing since you obviously aren't learning anything!" Haruhi said.

And how do you fit into the scheme of things?

"Duh, I'm going to be your home tutor!" she said as if it was common sense why a strange girl such as herself would break down one's door on a Saturday morning and demand this person to do homework. "You're terrible at taking notes, so I thought that you could use mine and I could help you with your homework."

She does have a point there. My grades are hardly better than Taniguchi's and I could really use the extra points in class.

"Fine. I really do need some extra help on homework, no matter how much I don't want to admit it. And, since you are here after all, I guess I'll take up your tutoring offer."

You may think that I gave up too easily, but I assure you that there's no arguing with this girl. If I denied her, I'd find myself bound with a book shoved under my nose.

"Good. I'm glad that you're finally taking your studies seriously. With my help, you'll be seeing instant improvement - I guarantee it!" she said happily. "Where are your books and stuff?" she asked, looking around the room in order to find my book bag.

"It's in my closet," I stated, pointing at the door in my room. She opened up it and quickly grabbed it.

"Well, let's get started!" She sat down on the floor and started emptying my book bag to find my notes and textbooks.

I walked over to her on the floor and sat down. We could sit at the kitchen table, you know.

"I wouldn't want you to be distracted if your sister watched TV or something," Haruhi answered simply. "Besides, your floor isn't that bad. Do you have a coffee table or something we could use to write on?"

After giving her a quick nod, I walked out of my room and into the living room. My sister was clutching Shamisen, giggling at some cartoon on TV. I felt disheartened as I originally planned to be sitting next to her today, watching with a dull expression on my face. I turned and opened up the storage closet. We had a collapsible table that we could use. I grabbed it and started to my room.

"Kyon-kun!" cried my sister. "Can I come in and play with you and Haruhi?"

"We will hardly be 'playing.' Haruhi came over to help me with homework." I didn't want to give her the reason, but she would fine out soon enough. And it was better if she knew the truth than telling someone over the phone that Haruhi and I were "playing" in my bedroom.

I opened my door and maneuvered both myself and the table into it. Haruhi's hand was pulling back her hair as she tied it into a ponytail. My hormones swelled up inside of me at the sight. Did she know how hot she looked with her hair tied back like that! \She glanced at me and I diverted my eyes.

"You can set the table up here," she said, pointing at the spot in front of her.

"Oh, right," I stammered. I wish she didn't do that! It's going to be so distracting! I set the knee-high table on its side and pulled the legs out from out of it, locking them into position. I turned it over and positioned it in front of Haruhi. I offered Haruhi a pillow to sit on (which she accepted) and then grabbed one for myself before sitting down.

"Let's get to work!" she declared.

I only hope that I can make it through Haruhi's lessons alive. It's hard enough to make it through lessons at school without dying from embarrassment when I miss a question our teacher asks; I can only imagine what Haruhi will do if I get a problem wrong. I'm sure my "head will roll" so I best pay attention to her explanations as to get all of her questions correct.

"I've been looking through your notes for each subject and I really think we need to start there," she stated. "I'll be blunt: Your notes totally suck! How do you expect to study from these when all you use are obscure abbreviations and half-baked sentences! And if you have time to be making these doodles..."

Inadvertently, I started to tune her out already. It's hard to pay attention in class let alone take notes. While I know I should be respecting my teachers, I can't help but feel as though many of them aren't even qualified!

Haruhi shoved a notebook under my nose which promptly returned me to reality.

"See!" she said. "These are my notes. I use some shorthand but I make sure that I know what it means so I can study from it later. Furthermore, I find that it's beneficial to underline important ideas. By writing these things down, you not only can study from it later, but you also can learn and understand it better. That way, if you have a question, you can either ask me or a teacher later. If you have a question, write it down so you don't forget and get stumped later!" Haruhi's lecturing was relentless. I wonder how long she'll go on.

"But since your notes are so terrible, I, being the kind person that I am, will let you borrow mine this evening to copy. However, I expect that you'll be able to take care of yourself on Monday after reading through and seeing how I do my notes," she continued in a harsh tone. I suspected that she'd be checking my notes after every lecture from now on.

Before she could continue chewing me out, there was a rapping on my door. I don't know why my sister even bothered knocking because she just opened the door anyway. Jeez, can't I get a little privacy?

"I knew that Kyon didn't eat breakfast, so I made you both some scrambled eggs all by myself!" gloated the young girl.

"That was thoughtful," said Haruhi with a warm smile on her face as she turned to the girl. She always had a soft spot for my sister. However, I couldn't help but wonder how Haruhi was able to nag me one moment and suddenly become a polite, young girl the next. I guess it's one of the mysteries I'll never understand about her.

"Thanks, Sis," I said gratefully. Whether or not I wanted to admit it, I was quite hungry. My sister wasn't the greatest cook, but she could probably do better than me. I think cooking's one of those things that works best if you have matching chromosomes. I, however, was wiser than to think that my sister brought us food because she was concerned about my health. It's completely obvious that she just wanted to spy on us. Jeez, Sis! It isn't like we're doing anything interesting.

"I just put it all on one plate, so you'll have to share!" she teased. She carefully set the plate down on the table in a small clearing where my notes weren't covering and skipped out of my room. Why was she always so happy? She didn't close my door, so I got up to do the menial task for her, only to be interrupted when she skipped back in with two glasses of orange juice.

"Hey! Be careful!" I snapped. Cleaning orange juice out of the carpet wasn't something that I felt like doing. She then slowed her pace down to that of a snail's and slowly set the glasses down on the table. I was surprised that she didn't pour a glass for herself so she'd have an excuse to stay, but since Haruhi's here, she knew that she could get away with anything.

I turned to sit back down only to find that Haruhi was already making a dent into the heap of scrambled eggs on the plate. Hey! What about me!

"Tutoring you takes quite a bit of energy, Kyon," Haruhi managed to get out even though her mouth was full of eggs. "But I guess you'll need nourishment too since we have quite a bit of work to do," she said thoughtfully as she pushed the plate ever so slightly closer to me. I guess my cold heart should be melting at the gesture, but I knew better than to let the eggs stand idle while Haruhi was there.

Using my fork as a shovel, I shoved as much as I could into my mouth. Screw chewing slowly! If I didn't eat these quickly, then I wouldn't be able to have any! Haruhi is a bottomless pit, I swear! Our forks clashed as we did battle to secure as many of the morsels as we could from each other. It wasn't fair that she got a head start, but I tried to make up for it in speed. God, my stomach is going to hurt so badly after this!

Finally, there was just one piece left. Should I be the gentleman and let the girl have it? She did, after all, come over to my house on a Saturday to tutor me. Does she deserve it? But she did eat all of those eggs before I sat down, so technically I should have it. Before I was able to come to a decision, Haruhi's fork darted forward, speared the last chunk of egg, and defiantly placed it in her mouth. I should have known!

"Okay, Kyon," she said even though she still had food in her mouth. At least swallow first before speaking! "I hope that you learned something about taking notes from this ordeal, but we really need to focus on studying right now. Let's start on your math assignment," she said after swallowing the eggs.

I started rummaging through all of the papers Haruhi had scattered out on the desk. I could have found it easily if she wouldn't have taken everything out of my bag. Speaking of which, I hoped that I remembered to remove Asahina-san's letter to meet her after school ages ago. I'll just have to pray that Haruhi doesn't find it. She joined me in the search and we came across my almost-started math assignment.

"Seriously, Kyon, you haven't started this at all?" she complained.

Hey! I did have most of my name on there and not my annoying nickname, mind you.

"Well, I guess we'll have to start at the beginning. So, how well do you know how to factor?" she asked.

I wish that I could lie and say that I'm good at factoring, but the truth would become apparent soon enough, so there's no use hiding it. I gave her the truthful answer and she sighed.

"I guess that's why I'm here."

She spent the next twenty minutes writing on a blank sheet of paper in front of me, quickly filling it up with numbers and the occasional letter. I furrowed my eyebrows, staring at the equations appearing in front of me. She wrote one last set of numbers and then handed me the pencil.

"Here, try this," she ordered.

I was hesitant at first. My handwriting's clumsy and childlike compared to hers, but I wasn't going to let that prevent me from showing off. I looked at the examples she had already done and then looked at the current problem. Suddenly, the pattern clicked, or at least something clicked... or made a clicking sound. Slowly, I began to etch out characters onto the piece of paper and began working out the problem. Take out a three from both the 3x and the 6, then put it out in front of the parentheses. I think I'm getting it!

Haruhi looked at my finished work and beamed me a smile.

"It looks like you're getting it! If you'd just pay attention during class and study after school, you'd be a pro at this by now. Factoring is a fundamental of mathematics, so it's important that you get this down or you'll never be able to pass another math class!" she warned.

We worked on math for about an hour. We repeated the same steps as before: Haruhi took out a blank sheet of paper, did various example equations for me, and then gave me a few to work out on my own. Haruhi was a surprisingly good teacher or I had an hidden knack for math, but the prior seemed more likely. I made a few mistakes, but I was happily surprised when I wasn't rewarded with a karate chop to the head for my imperfection.

"Enough of math. You seem to be getting it and we finished your assignment. It's important that you keep reviewing this, however, since in math, you build upon what you've already learned. If you have any questions, Kyon, be sure to ask me! I'm quite willing to help you.

"Anyway, I think it's time that we started working on history." she declared.

For the next hour and a half, I was grilled on various topics: Important people, important events, and important places during various centuries. I can't help but wonder the practicality of learning history when it's already in the past. Nevertheless, with Haruhi lecturing me, I was surprisingly able to pick up a lot of facts. I never knew that she would be that good of a teacher. Perhaps if she ever gives up her hunt to find anomalies and finally accepts reality, she'll look into becoming a teacher. She had quite a knack for making even hard concepts stick in even an impaired brain like mine.

We kept blowing through subjects one by one. I hardly noticed when my little sister came in again to drop off sandwiches for lunch. She didn't stay long, already accepting that we were just studying and nothing fun was happening. Haruhi grabbed a sandwich in one hand and continued lecturing me while eating it. Of course taking a break would be too much to ask for.

Finally, we had it all done and my head was aching as if it could never hold another fact. The cluttered pile of papers that I had unfinished were now all neatly stacked and organized, with several items marked and highlighted. Keeping up with this regime would be a pain, but I'm sure that Haruhi will kill me if I fall behind in my studies again.

Exhausted, I fell back and used the pillow I was sitting on as a place to rest my head. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Haruhi doing likewise. We did work hard today. I stared up, mesmerized by my ceiling fan.

"Hey, Haruhi?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks."

"No problem. It's my duty after all."

I smiled and continued staring up at my fan as it circled about endlessly. I felt my eyelids begin to droop as I heard Haruhi call my name.

"Yeah?" I said quietly.

"I was thinking," she began. "There is this movie tonight that I really wanted to go to, but I don't have anyone to go with me. It's totally lame to go by yourself, so I was wondering you wanted to come along. I mean, that is if you don't have anything else going on," she said so quickly that it took me a moment to figure out what exactly she said.

I turned and looked at her. She was still staring at my ceiling fan as if nothing had happened. When she didn't open her mouth, she was quite the beauty. And even then, with her hair in a ponytail, I couldn't help but feel... well, I don't know what I feel. It's sort of weird. Comfortable, perhaps? I don't know, but when I'm not being dragged around and forced into doing her evil bidding, she seems like a sweet girl.

And going to a movie with her? Isn't that my job as a male? Or perhaps it's just a friends sort of thing? It probably is. I'm sure that Haruhi couldn't actually have feelings for a normal boy like me. Perhaps it's supposed to be a form of payment for her coming over to help me with my studies? Many thoughts raced through my mind as I tried to make sense of all of this.

"So?" she asked, turning to look at me.

"Yeah, I think it will be fun," I said with a small grin.

She flashed me that rare million-watt smile.

"It doesn't start for another couple of hours," she informed me. "But we could always stop by the usual coffee shop to kill time until then."

"That sounds good," I said. "It's a date."

Those were apparently the wrong words as Haruhi's pillow fell down to meet my bulging skull.

"It's not like that!" she declared.

Haruhi Suzumiya, will the world ever understand you?


End file.
